


Team Players

by deathbycoldopen



Series: Our House Is Not A Home [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Bullying, M/M, Pining, Quidditch, Sexual Violence, Unrequited Crush, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathbycoldopen/pseuds/deathbycoldopen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean makes new friends, and Cas makes new enemies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The sexual violence is only implicit threats; there's no sexual content, implied or otherwise, in this section.  
> In case it isn't clear, Dean and Cas are now in their second year at Hogwarts.  
> Enjoy!

Cas rested his head in his hands, trying to focus on the words swimming in front of his face.  He'd been feeling ill all week, and so spent the day in the hospital wing instead of Transfiguration.  Now he had to read and understand what seemed like gibberish passing for a lesson in order to catch up.  It didn't help that rain was lashing against the library windows, nor the hushed whispers coming from the Slytherin couple sitting nearby.

He sighed and looked out the window.  Neither of those things were actually all that distracting; but it was easier to shoot murderous glares at the obnoxious fifth years than it was to think about the real reason he couldn't concentrate.

Dean was supposed to be here two hours ago.

Castiel scowled at the rain.  There was no way he was still at Quidditch practice, not in this weather.  Most likely he was hanging out with his new friend Benny, the other Beater on the Hufflepuff team, and had completely forgotten that he was supposed to help Castiel catch up on Transfiguration.

Cas was glad that Dean was enjoying Quidditch, he really was.  Dean had been so nervous before the tryouts, so worried that he wouldn't make the team that he'd thrown up in the bushes on the way over to the pitch; but once he was in the air, he'd been incredible.  He'd outflown every other second year trying out, as well as most of the older students, and he cracked several well-aimed Bludgers in all the right places.  The smile on his face after he got on the team was brighter than the sun, and he'd chatted away happily for hours about how proud he was going to make his dad, how he was going to work as hard as he could to help the team win the Quidditch Cup for the first time in twelve years.  Cas had listened happily, basking in Dean's enthusiasm.

No, his irritation had nothing to do with Quidditch, and everything to do with Benny.  Given that the first time he met him, Benny had ignored him completely to talk with Dean about Quidditch, Castiel felt he had a right to dislike the other boy.  Benny had made his dislike of Cas clear enough; Cas was just returning the favour.

The couple near him began snogging loudly and enthusiastically.  He glared over at them, but they were too busy sucking on each other's tongues to notice him.

He sighed and tried to focus on his homework, but couldn't make sense of any of the words.  Dean would have been helpful with this.  He was surprisingly good at Transfiguration, when he stopped pretending to be stupid.  Whenever Cas found himself stuck on it, Dean was always able to figure it out, and willing to help Cas get there too.

When Dean wasn't abandoning Cas for his Quidditch friends, that is.

He wasn't being fair to Dean, he knew that.  Dean deserved to have more friends than just Cas.  Just because Castiel didn't have any other friends- didn't _want_ any other friends- didn't mean that Dean had to limit himself as well.  And... Cas had always known that Dean wasn't as attached to their friendship as Cas was.  He knew that he wasn't as monumentally important to Dean as Dean was to him.  And it was fine.  Cas was fine with it, because he got to be friends with Dean.  Even if Dean didn't... even if Dean didn't feel the same way, Cas at least had a small part of Dean all to himself.  And it wasn't as if he never saw Dean anymore- it would be hard not to, really.  But nowadays Dean spent his free time at Quidditch practice, or with Benny.  The only free time he spent with Cas was when he needed help with something.  Apparently, Dean only wanted Cas around when he was useful.

"Oy," someone said, snapping Cas away from the downward spiral of his thoughts.  With a jolt, he realised he'd been staring absently at the snogging couple next to him- except they had stopped snogging and were now giving him poisonous looks.  "See something you like?" the girl asked, the words drawn out and laden with dangerous seduction.  Cas flinched.

"What?" he managed.  "Sorry, I wasn't... I was just..."

"Sure you weren't," the boy said, his tone matching the girl's.  He smiled; it wasn't a very friendly smile.  "Care to join the show?" he drawled, raising an eyebrow invitingly.  The girl leaned forward, looking Cas up and down in a way that made his skin crawl.

Cas suddenly felt very cold.  The two Slytherins were at least three years older than him, bigger, stronger, smarter, and had the look of two predators closing in on their prey.  He stood up hurriedly, gathering up his things.  "Sorry, I have to go," he said, his voice higher pitched than usual.  He walked past them in a rush, heart pounding.

"Fucking freak," the boy hissed after him.

Cas barely kept himself from running all the way back to the Hufflepuff common room.

Once he was back in the dormitory, he curled onto his bed and hid his face in his pillow.  His heart was still pounding.  He took a few deep breaths to calm it, knowing this was stupid.  There wasn't anything they actually could have done to him, not without getting caught.  It wasn't as if the library had been deserted; they'd just been laughing at him, trying to get this exact reaction out of him.

Normally, he might have just ignored them, and left without making a fuss.  But he'd been on his own when he wasn't supposed to be; if Dean had just been there, maybe Cas would have been able to handle it.  Maybe he even would have been able to snap something back at them.  Dean gave him the courage to do things like that, made him comfortable being a freak instead of wanting to crawl under a desk to hide.  But Dean hadn't been there, and embarrassment and shame and that sick feeling that dripped from the word _freak_ all boiling in his stomach.

Cas squeezed his eyes shut.  He stayed like that for a long time, hoping that sleep would catch up with him, and tomorrow would be a better day.

He was still awake when he heard Dean crawl into the next bed over.  He didn't open his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

"Cas!"  Dean waved at him enthusiastically from his seat at the Hufflepuff table.  Castiel hesitated- Benny was sitting right across from him- but the exuberant smile on Dean's face was too much to resist.  He sat down next to him as if Dean hadn't left him alone in the library the other night, and hadn't been so busy with Quidditch practice yesterday that he'd barely said two words to him.  Looking at Dean's excited expression, Cas could almost pretend everything was normal between the two of them.

Almost.

"Are you ready for the match today?" Castiel asked, knowing that if Dean started talking about the upcoming Quidditch match with Slytherin, Cas would only required to say a few words here and there while Dean did most of the talking.  He wasn't in the mood for an extended conversation; he seemed to be sitting under his own personal gloomy cloud, while the rest of the school gleefully anticipated the upcoming match.

"Definitely," Dean said, sharing a sharp grin with Benny.  "We're definitely going to kick those smug sons of bitches into the dirt.  They won't know what hit 'em."

"Well, probably the Bludgers we'll be sending their way," Benny drawled.

"And we'll knock 'em right out of the sky," Dean said.

"Sounds exciting," Cas said, and realised too late how flat his voice was.  Dean shot him a confused look, and that stung, that Dean didn't even realise what he was doing. .  It was nice that Dean was so excited, except that it seemed to throw Castiel's dark cloud into even harsher contrast.  He didn't want to spoil the day for either of them by being in a bad mood.  "I'm actually... not very hungry," Cas said quietly, getting up and walking out of the Great Hall.

"Cas?"  He heard Dean calling after him, but didn't look behind to check.  "Wait, Cas, hold on!"  Dean caught his arm just outside the Great Hall, pulling him to a stop.  "Cas, are you okay?"

Castiel shook Dean's hand off.  "I'm fine, I'm just not hungry.  You should go eat, you have a match today."

Dean frowned, peering at him.  Cas gave him his best poker face.  "Cas, what's going on?" Dean asked.

Obviously his best poker face wasn't good enough.  "Nothing," Cas said, looking down.  He was just being irrational and petty; he didn't want to drag Dean into it, even when Dean was the one causing it.  He didn't want to make Dean unhappy, especially not today.

"Bollocks," Dean said.  "Something's wrong, so spill.  Are you _mad_ at me or something?"

Cas couldn't help it.  He glared at Dean.  "God, whatever gave you that impression," he snapped.

Dean took a step back, obviously not expecting that response.  Cas felt an odd mixture of guilt and vindictive triumph at the look on his face.  The look of hurt and guilty surprise faded quickly though, shifting to defensively angry; that was the Dean Winchester way.  "What the hell?" he asked.  "I haven't done anything-"  He stopped, his eyes widening as Cas just stared at him.  "Oh," he whispered.  "The library.  Your transfiguration homework."

"Ding ding ding, we have a winner," Cas said.

Dean had the decency to look ashamed- though it was a belligerent sort of ashamed, like he couldn't quite let himself be so vulnerable, not here where anyone could see him.  He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

"Winchester!" someone said.  An arm suddenly snaked around Dean's shoulders, pressing him close to another boy's body in a way that wasn't entirely comfortable.  "Fancy seeing you here," the other boy murmured.

Cas stepped back.  It was the boy from the library the other night, the one who had given him that predatory grin and called him _freak_ with a poisonous hiss.

"Get _off_ me, Alastair," Dean said, leaning away from the Slytherin boy's grasp.  "Go make a human sacrifice, or whatever it is you Slytherin's do to get ready for a match."

"Hmmm, someone's touchy," Alastair said, pulling Dean even closer.  "Nervous about the match, are we?"

"Hey," Cas snapped.  "Leave him alone."

Alastair looked up, noticing Castiel for the first time.  "Oh, hello freak," he said, not moving an inch away from Dean.  The casual touch locking Dean in place made Cas' blood boil.  "You really do like a show, don't you?  What, don't want me touching your boyfriend?  Afraid he'll like me better?"

"Piss off," Dean spat, shoving the older boy away with surprising strength.  Well, he had been spending day in and day out training to be a Beater.

Alastair didn't try to insinuate himself back into Dean's space, but the look on his face still made Castiel's skin crawl.  The older boy smiled.  "Oh, did I touch a nerve?  He really is your boyfriend, isn't he?"

" _What_?" Dean shouted.  "Cas isn't my _boyfriend_ , what the _hell_?"

"Hmmm," Alastair said again, sidling away with a sly grin twitching on his lips.  "Methinks the lady doth protest too much," he said in a sing-song voice.  He wandered down hall, raising a hand to the two younger boys.  "Good luck out there," he called back to them.  "You're going to need it."

"Yeah, you wish!" Dean shouted after him.  He paused a second, then turned back to Cas with a sheepish look on his face.  "Shut up, I know that didn't make sense," he muttered.

"I didn't say anything," Castiel said flatly.

"Cas-"

"Don't you have to get down to the pitch?" Cas interrupted.  "Since Quidditch is the most important thing to you, nowadays."

Dean frowned.  "Hey, that's not-" he began, but Cas was already walking away.  Cas heard him call after him a few times, and then curse quietly before heading out to the Quidditch pitch.

Castiel stopped walking when he was out of sight, leaning against the wall and sliding down to the floor.  He rested his head against his knees and took a few deep breaths.  He shouldn't have gotten angry at Dean.  He shouldn't have walked away.  But even if Dean had apologised, it wouldn't have mattered.  Not with what he'd said to Alastair buzzing around Cas' head.

Cas pressed his knees into his closed eyes so that he saw stars and odd shapes billowing out from the darkness of his eyelids.  It wasn't even what Dean had said, not really.  They weren't dating or anything.  Not at all.  Even if...  No, Dean had every right to say that Cas wasn't his boyfriend.  Every right, except that he didn't have to sound so disgusted at the thought.  He didn't have to look like he'd rather go ten rounds against a dragon than date his supposed best friend.

Castiel heard footsteps and laughter nearby and jerked his head up.  Whoever it was was passing by around the corner and hadn't seen him, but he needed to move anyway.  It wouldn't bode well for him to get caught nursing a broken heart by an enterprising older student; they tended to be less sympathetic and more mocking.  He stood, rubbing his eyes to get rid of the stars, and slowly made his way to the Quidditch pitch to watch the match, to pretend he wasn't a freak who couldn't hold on to his only friend.


	3. Chapter 3

" _Wow_ ," Garth said, tripping over the stairs leading to the Entrance Hall.  "That was an incredible match, wasn't it?  Hufflepuff is definitely in the running for the Quidditch cup this year, what do you think?"

Cas made a noncommittal sound.  He'd barely followed what was happening in the game, distracted by the endless cycle of watching Dean fly around the pitch, remembering himself and yanking his gaze back to the other players, then finding his eyes drawn toward Dean again without his permission.  All he'd processed from the breathless and continuous commentary that Garth had given him throughout the match was that Dean was a fantastic beater- Cas knew that already- and that Hufflepuff beat Slytherin for the first time in several years.  Garth hadn't noticed his distraction, which was why Cas had elected to sit next to the Gryffindor boy instead of the other Hufflepuffs.  Despite the irritating amount of chatter, Garth was either oblivious, or extremely kind, and Cas didn't really care which.  Just as long as he could pretend to be normal with one of his fellow students, invisible in the crowd, instead of standing on the sidelines, painfully obvious and alone.

They were almost at the point where they would have to part ways for their respective dormitories, for which Cas was grateful.  As convenient as Garth had been for the Quidditch match, his chatter _was_ a little bit too much, as well as his tendency to hug Cas whenever he fancied, which was apparently every fifteen minutes or so.  Idly, Castiel wondered if Garth had some internal alarm clock that went off whenever he hadn't hugged someone in a certain amount of time.

"Hey, Winchester! _I was talking to you_ ," he heard suddenly.

"What do you want, Alastair?"

Cas froze.  Dean was down the corridor behind him, had probably been walking behind him and Garth the whole way up from the pitch without Cas knowing.  The knowledge stirred the hurt still coating Cas' insides, though he knew he didn't want Dean to talk to him anyway.  In fact, he didn't want to deal with Dean now, either.  He could just keep walking until he got to his fourposter and curled up under the covers, safe from any conversations that would just confirm that Dean didn't care.

Unfortunately, Garth grabbed his arm just as he moved forward again, holding him back.  "Hold up," Garth said, jerking his pointed chin toward the commotion behind them.  "Looks like trouble," and with that he was heading back along the corridor, as if he knew that Cas would follow him.  Instead, Cas stood rooted to the spot, staring at the scene in front of him.

It wasn't just Alastair who had confronted Dean.  The older boy had gathered three of his friends, and the four of them were crowding Dean against the wall with furious expressions.  They loomed over Dean, ready to pounce; and Dean might have been a fantastic beater, but he was still only a second year trying to face a group of fifth years who both outnumbered and outweighed him.

"You think you're special, don't you, Winchester?" Alastair drawled.  Out of the four of them, he was the calmest, and somehow that was more terrifying than the menacing anger emanating off the other boys.  Alastair wasn't angry, it seemed; he just wanted to hurt someone, and Dean had been the unfortunate soul to catch his attention.  "You think because you can swing a bat, that makes you better than the rest of us?  Because it doesn't.  It doesn't matter if you're good at Quidditch, if you win every game you ever play, even if you become the Minister of Magic, it doesn't matter, because you will _always_ be lower than the filth underneath my shoe."

"Hey!" Garth shouted suddenly, stepping up to the gang of fifth years.  He looked hilariously small and thin next to them- hilariously so, except that nothing about this was all that funny.  "Leave him alone."

One of the fifth years shoved Garth to the ground so easily it was as if Garth was weightless.  "Fuck off, toothpick," the boy said.

"Not until you leave him alone!" Garth said, the effect of his bravado ruined by the fact that he'd had the breath knocked out of him.

The boy who had shoved him looked down with a sneer as the other boys watched disinterestedly, still forcibly boxing Dean against the wall.  "Say please," the boy said in a singsong voice.

Before he knew it, Cas was walking toward them and picking Garth up by his arm.  "Go find Professor Singer, or somebody," he murmured to Garth.

Garth looked at him in shock.  "What? But-"

Cas gave him a light push down the corridor.  "Go.  I'll deal with them," he said, eyeing the older boys.  Garth looked between him and the others, then scampered away to find someone to stop this before it got out of hand.

Alastair laughed.  "Will you, freak?" he asked, his hand still wrapped possessively around Dean's arm.  He raised an eyebrow at Cas, then looked down at Dean, contemplated him, then punched him violently in the stomach.

Something inside Cas snapped.  Anger boiled in his gut, an amalgamation of all the hurt and bitterness that had been welling over the past few days.  He may have lost Dean to a bloody _sport_ , but that didn't mean Alastair could just _take_ Dean.  Cas wasn't allowed to have Dean, but neither was anyone else.  Especially not Alastair.

"Yes," Castiel hissed.

The older boys all laughed again.  Cas didn't give them any time to realise they had underestimated him.  His wand was out and shooting jinxes before they even noticed he had moved.

" _Petrificus Totalus!_ " Cas shouted.  " _Stupefy!_ "  His spells hit two of the boys square on the chest, and they both collapsed on the floor.  " _Expelliarmus!_ "  The disarming spell missed the other boy by inches; Cas dodged a jet of light and shot another curse at him, this time finding a mark.

" _Expelliarmus!_ " someone else said, and Cas' wand flew out of his hands.  He spun to find Alastair's wand inches away from his face.  Behind him, Dean was collapsed on the floor, from a spell or another blow, Cas couldn't tell.  "Well, colour me impressed," Alastair said casually.  "You're pretty quick for a Hufflepuff.  It'll make it worse for you in the long run, of course, but I applaud your-"

Cas didn't let him finish.  He leapt onto him, wresting the wand out of his hand and landing as many blows as he could before Alastair could recover.  He managed to connect his fist to the other boy's nose and stomach before Alastair snarled and his elbow found Cas's face.  Cas reeled away, feeling blood dripping from his cheek, but Alastair followed him, beating him with almost a professional stoicism.

Cas dropped to his knees, vainly trying to block the blows raining down on him with his already battered arms.  He made one last effort; with every drop of strength he had left, he grabbed Alastair's ankle and pulled.  Alastair slipped, but recovered too quickly.  With a snarl, the older boy grabbed his hair and slammed his head against the ground, once, twice-

Someone shouted, and the hand disappeared from his hair.  He collapsed, waiting for the next blow, but it didn't come.  Shouts, more shouts, then someone saying his name.

"Cas? _Cas?_ "

He closed his eyes and slipped into darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a pressure in his head, a warm touch on his hand, and a weight on his chest.  Cas considered all these things without opening his eyes.  He didn't _hurt_ , exactly, but something about the situation told him that he had been hurting not all that long ago, and that maybe moving would make him hurt again.  He opted to stay still, cataloguing what he could tell from his vantage point of closed eyes.

The weight on his chest, he discovered, was just his left hand, the one without the warm touch.  It rose and fell with his breathing, shivered ever so slightly with his heartbeat; it was heartening, he thought wryly, to know that he was at least alive.  There was a strong smell in the air- some kind of cleaning solution, a disinfectant.  The hospital wing, he realised slowly.  He was lying on a bed in the hospital wing after he... Oh.  After his fight with Alastair.

Footsteps echoed around the room.  The warm touch on his hand disappeared suddenly.  "He's not awake yet," someone said.

Dean.

Cas resisted the urge to open his eyes. Dean was a kind person, the kindest in fact, and so he was waiting by his bed to make sure he was okay; but that didn't mean that the instant Cas opened his eyes their fight wouldn't start up again.  Cas wasn't sure he was ready to deal with that yet, or ever.  It was better to just lie here, pretending that he still had a best friend.

"Give him a minute, Mr. Winchester."  That was Madam Mills, the school's matron, and those were her hands checking his pulse.  "You try bouncing back from a cracked skull, two broken ribs, and a smashed nose in under ten minutes."

"It's been half an hour," Dean muttered rebelliously.

"Twelve minutes, by my watch," Madam Mills said.  There was a pause, then she continued in a gentler tone.  "Don't worry, Dean.  He'll be alright, I promise."

"'M not worried," Dean said unconvincingly.

"Of course not," Madam Mills said dryly.  "It's not as if you looked like you were about to faint when Professor Singer brought him in, or anything.  Dean, it's natural to be worried about your friend.  He took quite a beating.  But trust me, I've treated far worse in my time here."  Dean didn't say anything.  After a moment, Madam Mills' footsteps moved away from Castiel's bed.  "Let me know when he wakes up," she said as she left, leaving Dean worrying at Cas' bedside.

It was getting harder for Cas to keep his eyes closed.  He didn't want to _upset_ Dean by pretending he was still unconscious; but he still didn't want to face him either.

Dean heaved a sigh after several long minutes of silence.  "God, Cas, you're a bloody idiot, you know that?" he murmured.

Cas's eyes flew open of their own volition.  "How am _I_ an idiot?" he snapped.

Dean gaped at him for a second.  "You're-"  The shock was quickly replaced by anger.  "You _prat_!" he snapped, smacking Cas' arm, making him wince at the faint echoes of pain in his chest and head.  "How long have you been awake?"

"A minute," Cas lied.  "How exactly am I an idiot, Dean?  Last I checked, I saved your sorry arse."

"I didn't ask you to do that!" Dean said.  "Jesus, Cas, Alastair almost killed you.  Garth was already fetching Professor Singer, why did you have to attack them like that?"

"You were in trouble," Cas said.

"Yeah, but you didn't..."  Dean was shaking, but Cas didn't think it was in anger.  His eyes were over bright and his face pale, his fists and his jaw clenched tight.  He looked terrified; he was, Cas realised slowly, holding back tears.  "You didn't have to help me," Dean managed, his voice catching.  "You shouldn't have done that, it wasn't worth it."

"Dean-" Cas began, wanting to reach out but knowing Dean wouldn't like that.

"You didn't have to do that," Dean said, looking down at the blankets covering Cas' bed.  "You nearly got killed because of me, and after I've been ignoring you and everything."  He swallowed, playing with a loose thread on the blankets.  "Cas, I'm so sorry," he whispered, refusing to look up.  "I got so caught up with Quidditch, and I shouldn't have forgotten you like that, because you're my best mate, and I can't lose you, I can't-"

"Dean!" Cas said, stopping him before Dean burst into tears.  There was something warm and happy filling Cas' chest where his broken ribs were now healed.  Dean didn't want to lose him either, he thought dazedly; Dean _cared_ about him, not just because he was his first friend here, or because he was useful; Dean cared about _him_.  "It's okay, Dean," he said, more quietly.  "I'm not mad anymore."

Dean peeked up from examining where the seams on the blanket were now unravelling.  "You're not?" he asked, and he sounded so damn _hopeful_ that guilt flooded through Cas.  Dean had made an honest mistake, and Cas had run away before he could properly apologise.  He never thought that Dean would care enough to be hurt when he left.

Cas smiled at his best friend.  "If I was mad at you, I would have let Alastair get away with it for a few more minutes before I stepped in."  Dean rolled his eyes, but he was smiling now.  "Dean, what exactly happened?" Cas asked quietly.  "Last thing I remember is Alastair beating me up."

Dean shifted in his seat, his smile turned sheepish.  "Well, I, um... I wasn't very happy about what he was doing to you, so I might have cursed him.  A few times."  His smile widened, and he jerked his head at a bed at the other end of the room.  "He's, uh... not doing as well as you are."

Cas leaned on his elbow to get a better look.  Alastair was lying immobile on the bed furthest away from Cas, but if Dean hadn't said that it was Alastair, Cas wouldn't have recognised him.  There were boils covering his face, and what wasn't covered in the disgusting pustules was swollen and deformed from a combination of jinxes hitting him all at once.  Madam Mills leaned over him, applying some kind of paste to his ruined skin.

"Impressive," Cas said, lying back against his pillows again.

"Yeah, Professor Singer thought so too," Dean said.  "He didn't say anything, but it definitely looked like he was smiling when he gave us both detention."

" _What?_ "

Dean shrugged.  "Apparently we should have waited for a 'responsible adult' to show up or something," he said disdainfully.  "But I wasn't about to wait for someone to wander by while Alastair was beating you to death."  He eyed Cas' morose expression, then grinned brightly.  "If it makes you feel any better, he gave Alastair detention too, every Saturday for a month, plus twenty points from Slytherin, _and_ he gave ten points to Hufflepuff, too."

"That makes it marginally better," Cas admitted reluctantly.  "What's our detention?"

"You'll be helping me here in the hospital wing for a few hours next week," Madam Mills said, suddenly appearing next to Dean.  She shot Dean a disapproving look.  "Didn't I tell you to let me know when he woke up?" she said.  Dean looked down with an appropriately contrite expression.  She turned back to Cas and began examining him.  "How are you feeling?"

Castiel shrugged.  "Fine," he said.  "No complaints."

Madam Mills nodded.  "You should be well enough to go to class on Monday," she said.  "You can stay the night here tonight, or you can go back to your dormitory, provided Mr. Winchester here promises to keep an eye out for you."

"I can do that," Dean said.  Cas nodded in agreement.  Madam Mills looked between the two of them as if gouging their sincerity, then nodded.

"Well then Mr. Novak, you're free to go.  Just take it easy for the next few days, alright?"

"Yes ma'am," Cas said, tossing aside the blankets and getting to his feet.  His head immediately started spinning, forcing him to sit right back down again.

" _Easy_ , I said," Madam Mills said.  "I'd like it if I didn't have to see you in here again until your detention on Friday."

"Yes ma'am," Castiel said, a little less eagerly this time.  He stood up cautiously, and found that the spinning wasn't too bad as long as he didn't move too quickly.  He gave Madam Mills a reassuring smile.  It seemed to work, because she nodded at them both and went back to tending to Alastair- who, Cas was disappointed to see, was looking slightly better after her ministrations.  "Let's go," he said to Dean, and the two slowly made their way out of the hospital wing.

"Maybe you should stay there for the night after all," Dean said after they stopped halfway down the corridor so that Cas could steady himself against the wall.

Castiel shook his head.  "I'm fine.  I'd rather not spend the night there."  He started moving again.  "Did you know," he said as they walked, "there was a man who loved hospitals so much that he would curse himself just so that he could stay there?  But one time he accidentally transfigured his head into a goat's head, and they couldn't fix it, so he ended up stuck that way for the rest of his life."

Dean burst into laughter, and the sound warmed Cas down to his toes.  There was no better sound in the universe than Dean Winchester's laughter.  Dean slung his arm around his shoulders.  "Cas," he said, "don't ever change."


End file.
